


Sacrifice

by Sinsrose



Series: Reclaim. [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Ficlet, Hanzo Shimada Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Young Genji Shimada, Young Hanzo Shimada, just a viewing of the events leading to genji's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25380628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinsrose/pseuds/Sinsrose
Summary: He is taking his place. This is his world now. The sparring, the fighting, everything that had even been instilled in him is now his.  He can feel Genji’s eyes on him, but he raises to leave the room. There is a silence that follows, he can hear Genji moving to chase after him, but he moves more swiftly and one of the elders draw him back.He crushes a petal with his hand when he stands outside.
Series: Reclaim. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838002
Kudos: 4





	Sacrifice

**He is sixteen when blood becomes thicker than water.**

  
The skin is no longer unmarked. The pain that he endured into it is nothing more than a scratch in the surface of matters that are vastly deeper. Ink is more than just a set of needles poking into his skin. It carries a weight, a marking, a meaning. There is a twist in the gut, a reminder that he must uphold himself. That he needs to maintain the loyalty to the _clan._ The dojo is a quiet place. Only because the hours are vastly earlier than normal for Hanzo to be here. There has been much talk to Hanzo by his father on what is expected of him. It has increased over the last few years, and something within Hanzo finds it off putting to say the least. The elder Shimada is reserved and listens more. It is easier to listen and to observe things that are needed.   
  
He lingers in the eve of the morning. He had already cleaned the area where he kneels now, meditating. It is not an uncommon practice in their clan to see if someone is here before anyone. The dawn often wakes him, despite the fact of being riddled with not being able to sleep for countless nights. He can still remember the night that his father had shown him into the side of the world that he would take a crown into once he was gone. The world of the Yakuza is nothing more to crime-lords to the westerners but to their kin it is more. It goes beyond family, there is a sense of loyalty that is etched into them until they were old enough to understand it. As he had gotten older that need to keep the clan happy: to have them _pleased_ only grew within him.   
  
He meditates, that is enough for _now_.

  
It is before the scattering of flower petals and between a match between him and Genji that the voices are heard. That the whispers are caught to the pair of brothers, and the weapon that he had been grasping slips from his fingers. Their father had not been the best man, no, unlikely that most would even say he deserved the title of father. But the elder Shimada crumbles, not from grief- no this loss was expected.Something twists in him. Death is another world, another whisper. But it is also a weight, a steady vice that captures him. It is a message that is not just death, but he can see the way that the elders look towards both, how they look at _him_. Their eyes are not soft, they never have been soft even when he had been a child learning. They are staring no longer at a boy being raised to take his father’s place.  
  
He is taking his _place_. This is his world now. The sparring, the fighting, everything that had even been instilled in him is now _his_. He can feel Genji’s eyes on him, but he raises to leave the room. There is a silence that follows, he can hear Genji moving to chase after him, but he moves more swiftly and one of the elders draw him back.  
  
He crushes a petal with his hand when he stands outside.  
  
- **  
He is eighteen when he watches a body hit the ground.  
**  
It had been mere business. That had been executed and gone wrong. The tides were changing. Things had become something else entirely after his father had passed. There had been less time to grieve, push it under, not notice the phantom echoes that the loss had created. He had learned ago to push forward, push things like that away.  
  
And how laughable it is now that he stands within a crossfire of events. The Shimada line still holds its place. It is a heavy place on a boy that had been crowned king of such matters. Much to the dislike of elders, but the business often turned sour, Hanzo was not afraid to detest or demure those who did not like him. He often saw through their petty games even if he had been young. He held his tongue until he had seen enough, heard enough, that it caused the men to find their own shallow graves. Duty has always mattered. It has not changed even as the blood pools from him. The water turning red in the shower, it washes and washes from the skin but never seems to end. He does not remember bleeding as much when the dragons lay raw on his skin: _those had been different times_. He closes his eyes as he nurses over a wound with a bar of soap, ignoring the way it stings. Another scar, another day.  
  
He breathes and forgets about the blood, until it invades his dreams in a fitful sleep. He raises at the dawn, not saying a word to anyone when he leaves Tokyo for home.  
  
But is it even home _anymore_?   
  
**Hanzo is twenty when he backhands Genji.**  
  
The moment is nothing more than a pinprick in time. A nerve crossed; some would even say it was him being sore about a sparring lost. But looking past that it runs deeper. It runs deeper, than just a slap to the face. It’s a set of swords crossed and clashing. It is the beginning of strain set upon a body and mind, the dragons below the surface are anything but calm. The current beneath feels electric, something that is _dangerous,_ and it shows in his eyes. The way he stares towards his younger brother. There is something within that has changed, and not for the better. He is not just the boy that was told what he would become. He is starting to become what his father desired, what he had been raised to do. What he had been born for, and Genji’s face has a flicker that comes across it but it is gone before the feeling can been seen for what it is.  
  
‘ _Get ahold of yourself’_ it’s words that mean nothing, They mean everything, the childish behavior, how disrespectful the other can be. It trickles down like sand in an hourglass, the grains slip past fingers more and more. The glass becoming full and thick of sands that threaten to reach the top. It is a ticking clock, and there’s a stillness in the air. a brash muttering from Genji at his words, which Hanzo ignores.  
  
He turns on his heel and goes, nothing but the clattering of other practice in the room. 

-  
 **  
Hanzo is twenty-three when he raises his _voice_.   
**  
The elders are nothing but a means to an end of all things. The world spins for them and all they do is pull at Hanzo’s footing even more. They do not care for the wellbeing of the brothers, they only care that order is upheld. That the traditions and what is in place never fall never falter. That honor will come before the blood ties that bind you. That family is not the same thing in this clan, within this type of kin.There’s a loyalty to their cause their purpose but not to the ties that bind. Not to blood that comes from the same coin. That was lost long ago, even as a child, Hanzo had been poised to be a weapon, to be a _king_. It remains unchanged, what he was taught, what was spoken to him, what was founded to become his ideals.  
  
The enraged voice from the elder Shimada, the way it does not back down. Does not falter even when the elder is stern with him. The debate has been raised for ages, the purpose: what he has do. It has been repeated to him. ‘ _If he cannot change, then he must drown.’_ it is a cruelty that most would gasp at but here it is not. Here it is a reminder of what matters and what is against it.   
  
Hanzo leaves the room with blood in his mouth from a bitten tongue.  
  
-  
  
 **Hanzo is twenty-four.**  
  
They fight on Genji’s birthday.  
  
Voices raised. Idle threats. Words. _‘Does honor mean nothing to you?’_ ‘—  
  
Answers that give no give, give no closure, give no hope. An attitude that remains. No changed viewing, just someone that acts like a child that had his toys taken away. Hanzo scowls, raises, and leaves.   
  
Genji drinks until he cannot remember that night.  
  
-  
 **Hanzo is twenty-seven when he stops showing anything.**  
  
He no longer speaks to Genji. The fight on his birthday had caused a rift that ran deeper than anything before. The outside world blooms with blossoms that show the spring is on its way. Hanzo is numb to the fact his brother no longer lingers. There sparring matches are no longer a game. They are no longer playful. They are a test of skill, who can beat who. Who has weakness, who can win.  
  
 **Genji wins twice.**

Hanzo tastes blood in his mouth when he leaves the dojo.   
  
He does not look back at his brother.  
  
-  
 **Hanzo is twenty-eight: when Genji dies.  
**  
The trees are pink with petals. It is an eerie calmness that is in his body, his mind, his bones. The years of stress, the battles waged were kept inside. The stoic face, the emotions never shown. The burden that was created for his shoulders, it stems and pulls like a vice. Every fight, every tense move was poised, it fractured his relationship with Genji, pulled the strings and shattered him. Let his elder brother slip further away until there was nothing but blood between them.Hanamura is a quiet place despite the chaos in the streets. Despite the violence he has partaken in, despite it all. And yet coming to the room where he stands, swords on his person, his chest feels heavy. There should be nothing there, but perhaps it is the dragons beneath the skin: not the cast of emotions. They shift below the skin.  
  
 **A battle is bitter between brothers.**   
  
Words had long been forgotten when it had come to this. When there was this much blood. It glints off the sliver of the blade, no innocence remaining in any of their features. For a set of brothers so much like ying and yang, now there is nothing. Nothing but the clash of sliver and how it slashes cross skin. How it slices apart. How it became a room full of blood dripping from wounds. How his brother is being reduced to nothing more. The wounds are vast, nothing but blood, it seeps from everywhere. Nothing on him is without it, and Hanzo feels nothing. it is like his movements are not his own when he fights, when he fights for a place that should matter so much.  
  
Some part of him is going to shatter. Some part of him is there when he strikes in a way that leaves Genji near dead and saying words that Hanzo turns his back on. He steps on his heels and leaves. He leaves, it’s a bloody mess, and the wreckage is a ghost.  
  
Part of him dies, he leaves the sword : and petals crush beneath his feet.


End file.
